


Death Wish

by dana_norram



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Arthur-centric, Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, brief mentions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 12:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14497335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dana_norram/pseuds/dana_norram
Summary: This is Arthur’s sixty-eighth death.





	Death Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly inspired by [this](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=234) _A Softer World_ comic strip.
> 
>  **Thanks to** [](https://laria-gwyn.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://laria-gwyn.livejournal.com/)**laria_gwyn** for being the most sweet and understanding beta in the whole world. =*

 

Arthur opens his eyes and blinks like he’s missing something. He doesn’t realize he has already forgotten it. The sensation of a broken bone, a bullet in his kneecap, the lungs collapsing against his ribs when he falls off the third floor of a burning building. The pain that hits him like it’s staining his whole world red.

This is Arthur’s sixty-eighth death.

Arthur blinks and rises immediately because he doesn’t feel anything. He can’t remember the last time he woke up from facing death with his heart pounding and his hands shaking. He read about this years before: that the body can’t hold the memory of pain. Arthur doesn’t remember where he read it, but he knows it is true.

He does remember the sound of his neck being snapped, the hissing of a knife half a second before it pierces through his chest, his vision blurred, the smell of blood leaking bit by bit out of a freshly made bullet hole. Yes, Arthur does remember all of those things. But no, he can’t hold the memory of the pain. He can’t remember the feeling of his racing heart, his short breathing, the numbness of his fingertips from the blood loss.

Arthur unhooks himself from the PASIV like he didn’t just die a horrible death. Ariadne asks him if he is okay and Arthur frowns because, what a stupid question, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it, he just nods at her. Eames looks up at him, but Eames doesn’t ask a thing, he just scratches his stubble and makes a joke that Arthur doesn’t laugh at.

The three of them have been working together for the past nine months. They have pulled four successful jobs so far and Arthur is pleased with the team. Yusuf doesn’t go into the field, but he sells them his compounds and they’re doing just fine. Sometimes Arthur goes to Mombasa to get a package. Sometimes, he meets Eames there.

Sometimes Arthur goes to Mombasa without having a new package to claim.

Arthur does remember the first thing he read about Eames: it was Eames’ blood type. Arthur had smiled back then, because it was his blood type too. He had never known someone who had the same blood as him.

And one day he says it to Eames and Eames laughs, not because it is funny, but because Arthur tells him that in the middle of their first date and apparently Eames thinks he is adorable.

Arthur does remember Eames’ smiling face. He remembers the sound of his laugh, the mischievous wink Eames gave him. But Arthur couldn’t hold the sensation of Eames touching him with his foot beneath the table, though. The way Arthur felt his face go hot when Eames ran a socked foot between Arthur’s legs till Eames touched his groin and Arthur stood up and his chair fell back onto the floor in the middle of the crowded restaurant. Arthur does remember the faces of all those people who stared back at them.

“That was a little bit harsh, wasn’t it, love?” Eames asks him later, when they’re in bed.

Arthur knows Eames is talking about the job, the way Arthur had died early in the dreamscape and he knows he can’t explain. Arthur rests his head against a pillow and runs his hands over the sheets he had been clenching for dear life just a few minutes ago.

“It was nothing,” he says and when Eames doesn’t reply Arthur wonders if it’s a good thing to have Eames agreeing with him. “It was only a dream.”

He hears Eames moving on his side, he sees Eames’ deep frown from the corner of his eyes. Eames tucks his chin against his shoulder and Arthur feels his warm breathing for half a second before it fades away. He closes his eyes and tries to hold onto it, even if he knows he can’t.

Arthur forgets every time Eames kisses him.

He forgets it when they fuck.

He forgets the heat, the pulsing, the pressure.

This is Arthur’s way of dying.

This is Arthur’s way of living.

Arthur opens his eyes and blinks like he’s missing something.

But he remembers the brightness of Eames’ blue-grey eyes half a second before their lips meet, the sound of Eames’ moans when Arthur presses their bodies together, the smell of Eames’ cologne in the pillow Arthur steals back from his arms in the middle of the night.

He does remember when Eames says his name like it is something _sacred_.

Arthur can’t remember his racing heart, though. When Eames takes his breath away, when he lies undone over the mattress, his legs numbed. Arthur doesn’t do it on purpose. He likes to think he does it only because he likes to feel things as if they are brand new.

But Arthur knows the truth is that he doesn’t have control of those kinds of things.

It is just like his sixty-eight deaths.

He may be the one pulling the trigger and he may fall off a building without having anyone pushing him, but the truth is all those things only get this far against Arthur’s choice. He knows he can’t control everything, so he tries to control everything he can.

Arthur controls his shaking hands by telling himself he is just fine. Arthur manages his racing heart by breathing through his nostrils. Eventually, his heart and hands don’t need to be told to stop, to calm down anymore.

But he never told himself to forget about the warm feeling that floods his chest when Eames smiles at him in the mornings, when Eames finds Arthur hard beneath the sheets and grins and goes down on him without a warning.

Arthur doesn’t remember the heat, the pulsing, the pressure afterwards.

But Arthur does remember it when _he_ calls Eames’ name, loudly, shortly and full of meaning.

It burns against Arthur’s ears. It hits him hard, _deep_ inside his chest.

This is Arthur’s way of dying.

This is Arthur’s way of loving.

“’morning, darling,” Eames says with a little smile when their eyes meet.

Arthur blinks and smiles back.

Arthur enjoys all of his deaths.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted at my [LJ](https://dana-norram.livejournal.com/44589.html) in 2010.


End file.
